Combatting Organ Transplant Abuse in China by David Matas (A Submission to the Irish Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs, July 6, 2017)

Combatting organ transplant abuse in China by David Matas (A submission to the Irish Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs, July 6, 2017) A comprehensive strategy against organ transplant abuse in China has two prongs. One is efforts to combat the abuse directly in China. A second is to combat complicity abroad in the abuse in China. Efforts to combat abuse in China Foreign policy combatting organ transplant abuse in China should incorporate, at least, these features: 1) Organ transplant abuse in China should be condemned. 2) International instances should be asked to conduct an investigation into organ transplant abuse in China. The request should be made to the Council of Europe, the European Union, the United Nations Human Rights Council and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. 3) China should be asked to provide historical and present death penalty statistics. 4) China should be asked to make publicly accessible its aggregate data from its four transplant registries - for heart, liver, lung and kidney. 5) China should be asked to allow independent outside investigators access to hospital patient and organ donor files. 6) China should be asked to allow independent outside investigators access to hospital financial records and in particular, the amounts received from patients for organ transplants and the amounts spent on all pharmaceuticals related to transplantation. 7) China should be asked to allow independent outside investigators to make unannounced visits to transplant hospitals and organ donation centres. 8) China should be asked to allow access to its prisons by the International Committee of the Red Cross. 9) China should be asked to stop the persecution of prisoners of conscience, including specifically Falun Gong, Tibetans, Uighurs and House Christians. 10) China should be asked to disqualify from the transplant profession any person involved 2 in the persecution of Falun Gong or other prisoners of conscience. A strategy to combat foreign complicity in organ transplant abuse in China itself has two elements. One is professional ethical standards. A second is governmental policy and Parliamentary legislation. Legislation combatting complicity in foreign organ transplant abuse should incorporate, at least, these features: 1) Extra-territorial criminal jurisdiction should be enacted to allow prosecution for participation in organ transplant abuse. The law should allow the courts to assume jurisdiction over any accused within the territory no matter what the status of the accused in the territory, whether the accused is a citizen or permanent resident or visitor. 2) Legislation should ban brokerage, advertising, soliciting trafficking, and trading in organ transplantation. 3) Reporting of transplant tourism by health professionals to the health system should be compulsory. 4) Aggregate data accumulated from the reporting of transplant tourism should be publicly accessible. 5) Entry bans should be imposed on those who have been complicit in organ transplant abuse. The ban should encompass visitors, students and workers as well as immigrants. 6) The Government should be mandated to maintain a list of those banned entry because of their participation in organ transplant abuse. 7) An exception needs to be made to state immunity legislation to allow those acting in an official capacity to be sued civilly for organ transplant abuse. 8) Both public and private health insurance systems should be prohibited from providing coverage for transplant tourism. This form of health service should be uninsurable. 9) Professionals should be subject to disqualification, losing their professionals licenses for complicity in transplant tourism. 10) Pharmaceutical companies should be prohibited from engaging in anti-rejection drug trials in China. 2 3 One of the reasons I and other researchers came to the conclusion we did that organ transplant abuse against prisoners of conscience, primarily Falun Gong, is happening is that there were no precautions put in place to prevent it from happening. That is still largely so. All countries should put those precautions in place. ..................................................................................................................................... David Matas is an international human rights lawyer based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. 3 .

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